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Royal Navy Carley Float/Liferaft colours for HMS Hermes in 1942


P-3s rule

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I'm currently building the Aoshima (yes, I know the Flyhawk kit is far superior!) 1/700 HMS Hermes, and am unsure what colour the carley floats/liferafts would have been painted on her last Indian Ocean sortie. I have consulted all of my references and checked several modelling forums for a definitive answer and am now slightly confused about whether they should have been one single solid colour to match the ship camouflage pattern OR some floats would be in 2 colours if the camouflage colour on superstructure behind  dictated. I have searched for built models and found BOTH variations so maybe there is no correct answer. I note that Jamie from Sovereign Hobbies states that no known port side photographs exist of Hermes in her camo scheme from April 1942.

 

Have also noticed several different views of the flight deck colour, with some references  stating a local green/grey mix was applied and others stating that 507a was used. 

 

Could anyone offer any views or ideas please?

 

 

Edited by P-3s rule
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Can I call you Orion for convenience? :D

 

It would be entirely normal practise for the Carley floats to be painted to match the background colour of the ship, and when lashed to the deck this would normally mean painted to match the ship when viewed from the side. If the camouflage pattern bisected a particular float then in practise they'd have lined out over the float although how fastidious they may have been painting the reverse side of the float may be up for debate!

 

As to the flight deck colour, I'm not aware of where the local grey/green mix suggestion originates. I do know where the 507A call-out originates but I don't know where he got it. The paint I think most likely was Bronze Grey which was by then available for a few years already as a proprietary non-slip paint matched to Admiralty Pattern 631 Bronze Grey, which for most of the 1930s was the only approved flight deck paint system and colour for aircraft carriers. The name is a bit of a misnomer - it was made using white, a bit of black and a whole heap of ochre yellow pigment resulting in a dark olive colour. This colour still appears to have been in use when the Illustrious class carriers entered service. 

 

This model is the best I've seen in terms of the modeller's artistic use of the colour.

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Ha ha....Orion sounds great, Jamie!  🙂  Interestingly when I worked with 92WG, we never used the word "Orion" but referred to the aircraft as "bombers", P-3s, individual aircraft number such as 754 (A9-754), or TAPS. Sad to see the old birds making way for technology in the form of the new Poseidons. 

 

So if I understand you correctly, if a particular float was located on an area of island or other  superstructure or hull which was bisected by 2 camo colours, the float would have correctly been painted in both colours to match - as seen in most completed Flyhawk and Aoshima  Hermes models online. This  was normal RN practice I assume during WW2 then? There would no doubt have been exceptions though? So if a photo was available that would be proof enough?

 

That Illustrious Class pic above shows the real flight deck colours very well thank you.  What a great build/finish. Awesome!

 

Many thanks for your advice Jamie. I must order some RN paints via Sovereign Hobbies one day soon.

Edited by P-3s rule
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